Beware monogrammed & personalized gifts

When Julian was born, we received three stools that said JULIAN on them. He was the center of our universe, and if I was a tattoo-lover, I probably would have had his name inked across my body.

I may not have thought to leave room on my back for “Scarlett.”

The other day when I received a marketing email from Pottery Barn, packed with playroom furniture and luggage, all of which can be customized with initials or names, I felt like I should publish this warning:

If your family is not yet complete, plan for hand-me-downs.

Here’s how:

1) Buy gender neutral colors. When you buy your child a bike, a helmet, a scooter, look for red, orange, or lime green. Blue is versatile as well, but a Spider-Man-emblazoned blue scooter may or may not be embraced by a little sister. It’s hard to predict. A booster carseat fit for a princess may or may not be accepted by a little brother. Scarlett loves wearing her brother’s hand-me-down pajamas and doesn’t care or notice how boyish they are, but for some reason daytime clothes are a different story.

2) Limit personalized gifts to smaller items. Everyone loves to see his name on a pencil or small backpack. A gigantic monogrammed chair becomes a less flexible piece of furniture over the long run.

3) Label with last names. If you’re ordering labels or just using a Sharpie to tag something before allowing it to leave the house, consider whether another child may ever use it. My daughter’s precious lovey? Sure, that’s for “Scarlett” alone, no one else. EVER! A picture book that’s going to preschool for Show and Tell should be marked with our family name instead. That’s so that she can’t rip it out of her brother’s hands claiming, “That’s MINE!”

4) Make it temporary. We have some of these tags that work well on backpacks, lunchboxes and jackets. A piece of painters tape with a name written in marker may do the trick for temporary labeling as well.

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Such good advice! At least half the clothes my 3yo has worn in his life previously belonged to his brother. It wasn’t such a big deal to have the wrong name on his jacket as a toddler (though it did occasionally cause some confusion at day care), but he already recognizes the first letter of his name, so he knows it’s wrong when he sees his brother’s name written in sharpie inside his clothes. I wised up early on and ordered a bunch of labels with our last name on them.

Funny you should mention tattoos. I have my son’s name on my rib cage. But I did leave room for it to be expanded to include an additional name or two if that is what is in our future. Another way to go is just with the first letter if you are a family like mine. We all have names that start with a “J” and all of our children will have “J” names so we can put a “J” on anything and it can be passed down.

This is great advice. Right now my daughter wants to do what my son does, so anything ninja still has a place in her heart. However, she’s quickly developing her own sense of self and the Hulk t-shirts just aren’t going to fly.

That said, our last name is Sanchez. Marking stuff with just Sanchez is like putting Smith on something and sending it out into the world. I need to figure this out soon because my son starts Kindergarten this year and I have to get labels this summer…so….any other advice? I’m thinking of going Mexican style and doing Paternal Surname Maternal Surname but that might confuse the teachers :-/

Love the last name advice. We just started a day camp this Summer and will do preschool in the Fall. Of course they want all clothes labeled. I was wondering how to do hand-me-downs if everything had Alexa’s name on it.

I was thinking of doing some sew in tags so I can give them away to other kids once both of mine grown out of things, but the last name thing will work while the items stay in our family.

We have twin boys, and they share pretty much everything right now (they are 2). So I’m looking for alternatives for name labels because I’m just not prepared to have them squabbling over which plastic container belongs to which brother!

Last name only is good – but spare a thought for those like us, whose last name is also many other people’s first name, like James, Edward, Mackenzie etc!

Our oldest is Lidia and our youngest is Eliza. I figured out if I put her first initial with part of our last name (it’s too long to put the whole thing), I can turn the L into an E when our youngest uses it. 🙂

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[…] and all the stages in between, kids need their stuff labeled. (This is not intended to negate my feelings about personalized kids furniture.) This morning, I stuck a personalized label with my son’s full name on it on the back of his […]